Read Book

Chapter 17: Yes Is Your Soul

And when you say such things and you ask questions like this, I am amazed. Why did you become a sannyasin in the first place? - because sannyas is a commitment, it is a dedication, it is a declaration of your love, your trust. It is a declaration to the skies that: “Now I am dropping the no from my being. It has tortured me enough. It has been a disease. I am entering into the world of yes, into life-affirmation.”

And the yes to the master is not only to the master, because the master is only a window to the universe. You are saying yes to the universe. Only in that yes will you expand and know tremendous freedom. Your yes and no are just stupid games of the mind.

But if you are still feeling to enjoy the no you can enjoy, but then sannyas is not for you.perhaps a few lives more. And if you can meet somebody like me again, which is not necessarily..

The day Gautam Buddha died, Ananda burst into tears. Gautam Buddha said, “Ananda, you have been with me for forty-two years. It is more than enough. Whatever I had to give to you, I have given. You don’t need me. Why are you crying?”

Ananda said, “I am crying because even while you were alive and I was with you, day in, day out twenty-four hours a day for forty-two years..” He even used to sleep in the night in the same room where Buddha was sleeping - who knows what he may need in the night? He served him almost like a shadow and followed him almost like a shadow.

He said to Buddha, “I am crying because I have not become enlightened yet, and you are leaving the body. I cannot conceive that again, in the future, there will be this immense opportunity; that I may again be so close and so intimate with a man like you. What will happen to me?”

Buddha said, “Don’t be worried. Your ‘yes’ was mixed with ‘no’.”

And there was a reason for it. Ananda was an elder cousin-brother of Gautam Buddha. So just the ego saying, “I am the elder brother of Gautam the Buddha..” And when he took sannyas he told Gautam Buddha, “Listen. Once I have become a sannyasin I don’t have any right to go against your will. Your will will be my will. But I am still not initiated, so before initiation I am still your elder brother and you have to listen to me. I have three conditions. Promise me that you will never go against those conditions.”

Buddha said laughingly, “What are those conditions?”

The conditions were not great - but a condition is a condition whether it is great or small. The condition carries an undercurrent of “no.” He is making it clear from the very beginning that Buddha cannot touch these three things. One was, “You cannot send me away from you. I will always remain with you. You cannot find any excuse like, ‘Go and propagate the word.’ That is not possible. I will remain with you. Wherever you go, I will go.